Advice on a used NSX

[AR]

I've being looking to buy an NSX for a while. Looking in the 20 to 25 K reg. I just being in touch with a local gent who has one for sale. He is asking 15K is a 91 with 56600 on the clock. It is a UK Car, 2 keepers including him and he has had it since July. The seller seemed quite nice on the phone, but he seemed to be relying a lot on what the previous owner told him. I will test drive and inspect the car properly tomorrow as today I only saw the outside. Points I could see wrong:

Seats are worn and there is a tear on the side bolster.
Front splitter is scratched.
Exhaust pipes under the tips seem rusted.
Drivers side mirror is broken.
Rear driver wheel arch cover is split a bit by one of the rear plugs.

This car had a major service and cambelt change last year at my local dealer.

The owner when asked mentioned that the car needed,

New clutch
Air con regassing ( leads me to believe that is gone )
Alarm is not working
Car has had a respray, but to me it looked very professional ( he stated he had receipts for £ 4500 pounds respray and £ 52000 sticker price )

Considering all this points what do you guys think is worth ?

I am seen bills as follows

Clutch £ 1200
Seats $ 500 plus shipping for cover from America or local ones ???
Mirror £ 400
Rear Wheel Cover ???
Exhaust £ 1000
AC ???

So it will easily be £ 19K to put it right. That is if I do not follow the road less travel and rip out the AC, factory seats and change the exhaust.

[jaytip]

what was the reason for it having a full re-spray?
i re-sprayed mine(in a different colour) but i took photos of the car at the bodyshop prior to it being stripped so any potential buyer in the future will know it wasn't re-sprayed due to a bump.

[AR]

The previous owner told the current that the car had being keyed. He mention that it was HPI clear. Ryland Honda had serviced the car in the past and the mechanic there told me it was a sound car, except for the cosmetic bits, we shall see.

Would you say that there is too many variables floating around to buy it ?

I will test itt tomorrow and get a feel for it, but if I get the spine tingling, I'll just have to wait for the next one. This is getting like when one loses a pet and visists a few animal shelters hoping to find your lost one.

[AR]

Will see the fellow on Monday as he was busy today. More time to think about it. After a year of searching I am getting good at having patience...not!

[BrownBear]

Hi - My views, FWIW..

Seats are worn and there is a tear on the side bolster.

This is quite normal - caused by people sliding down the seat - I've seen a few cars with this.

Front splitter is scratched.

Again nothing to worry about - that's why it's there (if that makes any sense) - the splitter gets a little scratched but when it's trashed you just need to replace the splitter not the front of the car..

Exhaust pipes under the tips seem rusted.

Well, the tips are chromed, so after a few years of cleaning it's not surprising that there are some bits of rust - used to happen on my bikes, should polish out.

Drivers side mirror is broken.

'broken' as in smashed, or as in not working (electrics?)

Rear driver wheel arch cover is split a bit by one of the rear plugs.

Would this worry you?

This car had a major service and cambelt change last year at my local dealer.

That's Good.

Considering all this points what do you guys think is worth ?

I think it's probably worth about 15K - if it didn't need these things it would be worth more, but then again at least he's being up front with you.

I am seen bills as follows
Clutch £ 1200
Seats $ 500 plus shipping for cover from America or local ones ???
Mirror £ 400
Rear Wheel Cover ???
Exhaust £ 1000
AC ???

Are you sure that a tear in the seats means you need to replace them or some rust on the tips means you need to change that - depending on how bad it is, obviously.

So maybe you're looking at just the Clutch+Mirror to get it into good condition for use and then the other things could be addressed as time/funds allow...

Hope some of the above helped -
Short version - It's probably worth the money - whether it's for you is up to you, though.

Cheers

[jaytip]

That pretty much sums up my opinion as well Joe.
AR, if it drives nice,go for it.The price is certainly reasonable.
Good luck.

[Martyn27_uk]

Then again, even if it WAS in the snap-ring failure range it would probably have given out by now :-) It's a £3000 repair though, if it fails!

All the best.

[Martyn27_uk]

Had mine regassed at the local under-the-railway-arches specialist. Needs to be retro-fitted with ozone friendly gas R134 - might involve changing all the valves and pipework if your man is picky. Mine fitted a "compromise" gas/lubricant combination which avoided the need to rebuild the system. Best to allow a couple of hundred pounds and a few extra to install fluorescent marker gas in case you need to track down a leak in future.

[710]

Look at it this way; if you wait for a better car, you could spend 20K. But even then you don’t really know that something big won’t go wrong (engine, gearbox etc). It will be an unknown.
But if you spend 15K on this car and something goes wrong, you have saved the money to fix it. And when you fix something, you absolutely KNOW it’s fixed and how well and when and by whom. It is no longer an unknown. That’s a good feeling.

If the price is low, buy it and fix it. It’s better than paying a lot more for an unknown.
And, of course, maybe nothing will go wrong. If the owner seems honest as you said, probably this will be the case (nothing will go wrong).

Does this make any sense? :?
Anyway, have a crash expert look at it to see if it’s had any big accident. Everything else can be fixed.
But why is he selling it so soon? For an innocent reason or not? Did he respray it or was it the previous owner? If it’s for a little crash (and not actually for key damage...), ok, no problem. Big crash? Get it looked at. Someone who knows cars can see if the car was seriously crashed. An alignment check might (only might) tell you something too. These new laser machines they use these days are pretty good.
Sorry if I’m confusing you… :?
peter

[AR]

Hi Lads, I just got back from Brands Hatch, no NSXs but saw an ENZO.

I must admit that you fellows certainly know how to put things in perspective.

I will find out more about the paint.

BTW the whole mirror assembly is broken at the shaft.

Many thanks for the input, will write back tomorrow night once I've test driven it.

Cheers

AR